Effect of Residual Accelerations on the Crystal Growth of II-VI Semiconductors in Low Earth Orbit

The paper compares and summarizes the effects of residual acceleration during crystal growth on the compositional variation of two II-VI solid solution binary alloys (Hg(0.8)Cd(0.2)Te and Hg(0.84)Zn(0.16)Te). The crystals were grown by directional solidification on the second United States Microgravity Payload (USMP-2) and the first United States Microgravity Laboratory (USML-1) missions, respectively. For both alloys, changes in the direction and magnitude of the quasisteady acceleration vector (approximately 0.4- 1 mu g) caused large changes in the radial compositional distribution that demonstrates the importance of residual accelerations, even in the submicrogravity range, for large density gradients in the melt and slow solidification rates. The observed compositional variations will be correlated to changes in the radial flow velocities ahead of the solidification interface.